John Warner, the independents and the future

Virginia’s 2008 Senate Riddle: Two Warners, One Warner or No Warner, By Matthew Spieler (New York Times) Virginia’s Democratic Party, like its counterpart in most other Southern states, had been losing ground for years as this decade began. But the once-dominant state party hit a low point in 2002, when it failed to field a challenger to Republican Sen. John W. Warner.Running for the second time without a Democratic opponent — the first time was in 1990 — Warner piled up 83 percent of the vote to defeat two little-known independent candidates....